To punch through Adolph Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and push back the Nazi occupation of western Europe, the Allies devised Operation Overlord, sprung June 6, 1944. Starting before dawn, 50 miles and five beaches along Normandy, France, were stormed by 156,000 U.S., English and Canadian troops, 1,200 warplanes and 5,000 watercraft. By August, more than 2 million Allied troops would join the fray.

The following stories are told by two veterans from the Peoria area. Seventy years later, they recall the horror and glory of D-Day, so the rest of us will never forget.

FIRST OF TWO PARTS

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Jim Zikus, 90, Peoria

U.S Navy, USS Arikara

Jim Zikus chose the Navy for his love of water, but the high seas and a combat explosion almost took him down for good.

After graduating from Manual Training High School, Zikus worked at Hiram Walker Distillery until he was drafted at age 19. He opted for the Navy.

“I liked fishing, and I liked water,” he said, before grinning. “And I know you can’t dig a foxhole on a ship.”

At Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago, he decided to try his hand as a radioman, which sounded interesting. He was sent to the University of Chicago for several weeks of training, at times relegated to boring duty as a guard at Stagg Stadium. After radio school, Zikus was sent to Charleston, S.C., to join about 80 crewmen on the newly launched USS Arikara, a fleet ocean tug. After months of antisubmarine training off the East Coast, in March 1944 the Arikara and other tugs towed barges (to be used as breakwaters for an unspecified “secret mission,” the crew was told) to Falmouth, England. The journey took 26 days, battling choppy seas and evading German subs. With the 12th Fleet, the Arikara towed mulberries — portable harbors — from London to the southern English coast, in preparation for transport to Normandy. The work was done at night to avoid sneak attacks by German E-boats and bombers, whose ordnance shook but never hit the tug.

By the evening of June 5, en route to Omaha Beach, the crew understood the impending mission.

“You knew that the invasion was going to happen,” Zikus says. “Hell, nobody slept that night. Everybody was just jibberjabbering on the deck. You couldn’t sleep if you wanted to.

“You knew you’d be targeted. And you knew you might not come back. But as young men, we were eager to go. We all had jobs to do. And we did it well.”

Page 2 of 5 - Before dawn on June 6, Zikus saw flares along the French coastline from combat ships attacking Omaha Beach.

“The battle of the century was underway,” Zikus says. “Bombardment from battleships, cruisers and bombers was deafening as they prepared the beaches for landing by our troops. A solid mass of amphibious landing craft and ships of every type could be seen in every direction in the English Channel.”

Later, as the sun rose, Zikus could see more: “The sky was just black with airplanes.” Though the coast loomed too far for a close glimpse, he understood the fate of the first infantrymen to hit the beach.

“It was a slaughter,” he says somberly. “So many guys didn’t make it.”

Soon, the Arikara began towing damaged Allied craft from the fray, with Zikus communicating with other vessels to coordinate movements. But German shore-battery fire was greater than expected, so the Arikara began quick rescue and repair work, to help troops and supplies to flow onto the beach.

After the initial off-loading, the tug spent a month on salvage operations, pausing just once for repairs when a mine caused minor damage to the Arikara.

“We saved so many vessels that would’ve been out of commission otherwise,” Zikus says.

From there, the Arikara did further salvage work in North Africa, Italy and other locales. By spring 1945, the tug was heading into the Pacific Theater for the biggest amphibious assault of the war, the Battle of Okinawa. Zikus and the crew continued salvage operations, but repeated kamikaze attacks heavily damaged the fleet, prompting the Arikara into rescue-and-repair duty again.

On May 18, the destroyer USS Longshaw ran aground on a reef. The Arikara approached to pull the destroyer free, with Zikus scrambling aboard to arrange secure communications with the tug. Japanese shore batteries began to fire, with shells at first plunging into the ocean.

“It sounded like rocks hitting the water: plop, plop,” Zikus says.

But the four successive volleys found their mark, pounding the Longshaw and sending Zikus sprawling face down. The destroyer heavily damaged, he still kept trying to set up secure radio operations. But the fifth shot hit the ship’s powder magazine, rocking the Longshaw and blasting Zikus airborne.

“I remember flying into the air,” Zikus says. “A piece of metal the size of a refrigerator was spinning near me. The next thing I remember, I came to, in the water. I thought I was dreaming.

“I looked at my watch, which was covered in dark oil, as if the time mattered. I thought, ‘I’d better get moving.’”

Page 3 of 5 - But Zikus had a hard time moving anywhere, with much of his body numbed by shrapnel and fractures. But he somehow swam to a passing lifeboat manned by two other sailors.

“Only the Lord could have saved me,” Zikus says, still amazed he survived.

Meantime, after an “abandon ship” order, the Longshaw had been left to founder. The attack claimed 86 sailors. Later that day, the U.S. fleet scuttled the destroyer.

Meantime, Zikus was plucked out of the ocean by an Allied craft and returned to the Arikara. After three days of recovery, he was back at radio watch.

The Arikara continued further salvage operations until the Japanese surrender. Zikus returned to Peoria in November 1945. The next year, he married Mary Alice Neavill, and five years later they built a North Peoria house in which they still live. They raised two daughters and have three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Zikus worked 22 years as a carpenter, then as business representative for Peoria Local 83 Carpenters Union.

Over that time, he learned a curious fact about that long-ago boring job as a guard at Stagg Field: underneath, scientists with the Manhattan Project were conducting work that would lead to the creation of the atomic bomb — and eventually the end of World War II.

“Right under my feet,” Zikus says, marveling.

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Joe Powers, 93, East Peoria

U.S. Army, 101st Airborne Division

Over a quiet moonlit countryside, Joe Powers jumped from his plane, intent on leading his paratroop unit against the Nazis but suddenly realizing he might have to fight alone.

The Manual grad felt the first urge to sign up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In July 1942, the 21-year-old set aside his fledgling masonry career and headed to the Main Street enlistment office, joined by his brother Bob and cousin John. They decided parachutes might offer excitement, so they entered the Army.

After basic training at Camp Toccoa, Ga., the trio had extensive parachute training at Fort Benning, Ga., and Camp Mackall in North Carolina. From New York, the 101st Airborne landed at Liverpool in spring 1944 and trained in the village of Aldbourne, staying in refashioned horse stables.

During a training jump, Powers’ brother injured his hip and was sent home. Meantime, Powers showed enough moxie and skill to become the unit’s jumpmaster.

On the night of June 5, Powers and 15 others paratroopers jammed into a C-47 and zoomed from the southern England coast — a scene repeated all along the coast. The goal was to secure roadways and destroy German artillery near Utah Beach. Powers says the mood was realistic but upbeat.

“We knew we were going to get killed, a bunch of us,” Powers says matter-of-factly. “Any invasion takes its toll.

Page 4 of 5 - “We told each other, ‘I hope you make it back, buddy,’ — things like that.

Periodically, Powers touched the rosary jammed into a leg pocket.

“I used to be an altar boy,” he says. “I took it with me. I said the rosary a lot.”

Just after midnight, as jumpmaster he took the first leap out the door. He surveyed a tranquil countryside, bathed in moonlight. As he looked up, expecting to see the others follow, he instead watched as the plane zipped away.

Later, he’d find out that the second jumper’s equipment got tangled in the doorway, so the plane continued until the problem was solved and the men could jump. It wasn’t the only problem in the operation, as equipment failings and other woes caused the 101st to miss many intended drop zones.

Powers, floating down, pondered the notion of battling Nazis solo. He landed in a hedgerow that provided slight cushion to an otherwise harsh impact.

“I felt like puking,” he says. “But I thought, ‘Well, I can’t just sit here.’”

Figuring to be about six miles from the beach, he assembled his M1 and began walking along a roadway. Soon, he met others from the 101st, including his cousin. Eventually, small groups of paratroopers would find others and form bigger packs.

Heading toward Utah Beach, Powers says they followed earlier orders: “If you run into any Germans, you try to drive them out, to kill them.”

Powers’ group soon encountered a small throng of enemy soldiers. In an exchange of gunfire, one German was killed, with others wounded.

As they continued forward, before dawn they heard booms. The Allies were clearing the beach for landings.

“They were raining down all sorts of bombs,” Powers says. “All hell broke loose on the beach.”

After several days of firefights with Germans, Powers’ unit was sent back to England. They prepared for a September jump into Holland, to clear roads to make way for British tanks. After landing, they engaged the Germans, gradually moving the skirmish line forward. While in a trench, Powers felt a shell explode nearby.

“It blew me silly.”

The blast stunned Powers, leaving him with a concussion, while shrapnel shredded into his right arm, near his elbow. Medics took him to a field hospital. But a few nights later, shelling got close. “Hell,” he told a medic, “I’m going to get blown up here. Send me back to the front line.”

He re-engaged in combat, but soon was sent to England for a medical check of his elbow, which had only half-range of motion. He eventually was sent stateside, where he was honorably discharged in 1945, to return to his home in Peoria.

Page 5 of 5 - Not long after that, a 5-year-old neighbor boy often would visit, enraptured by Powers’ paratrooping tales. One day, the lad dashed home and declared to his mom, “I’m going to jump out of planes, just like Joe!”

Indeed, he would — and that little boy not only became an Army Ranger but a four-star general, renown worldwide as Wayne A. Downing.

“He was my buddy,” Powers says, grinning. “I met a lot of famous people because of him. Whenever he was in town, he’d call.”

Otherwise, Powers returned to the workaday world. Despite his compromised shoulder, he served 26 years as a Peoria firefighter, then another 26 as a mason. He and wife Betty, who died in 2001, raised one daughter. Though his cousin and brother both survived the war, they’re gone, too.

Each June 6, Powers doesn’t do anything extraordinary to mark the date, aside from mulling the many who never returned.